


Lionhearted

by crossedsabers10S



Category: Fable (Video Games), Fable 2 (Video Game), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crossover, I Tried, I'm Sorry, Kinda Crack, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:41:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23298721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossedsabers10S/pseuds/crossedsabers10S
Summary: Somehow, somewhere, the Heroes of Old are laughing.Alright, Heroes from Fable 2 are summoned into the Harry Potter Universe. Because. That’s why. Maybe the Order wanted Champions, maybe Voldemort wanted Weapons—hell, maybe Neville had a dimensionally altering Potions accident. Hammer, Garth, Reaver, and Sparrow all end up attending Hogwarts. Preferably during fifth year, because the idea of Umbridge’s head exploding amuses me. They got de-aged during transit; they’re physically around sixteen-ish, and their skills are intact with allowances for smaller bodies.This is just for giggles, so it's only going to be updated very sporadically.
Relationships: Garth (Fable) & Hero of Bowerstone, Hammer (Fable) & Hero of Bowerstone, Hero of Bowerstone & Reaver (Fable), Hero of Bowerstone/Reaver (Fable), Sparrow/Reaver
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

“Bloodstone, Reaver,” McGonagall calls out, and Harry didn’t think he was imagining the distaste in her voice.

He watches as a lean dark-haired boy swaggers up to the stool and sits down, lanky frame folding to sit on a seat meant more for eleven year-olds. Before the Hat covers his face, Harry catches a glimpse of an expression that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Draco Malfoy. Harry silently bets to himself that the boy would be joining the Slytherin table soon and is proven correct barely a second later when the Hat calls out the House name.

“SLYTHERIN.”

The clapping was quieter than usual—half the student body was still whispering amongst themselves about having transfer students in the first place. If that bothered the newest Snake, Harry couldn’t tell. The boy simply hands the Hat back to McGonagall with a flourish and smirks at students staring at him.

Speaking of Malfoy, the blond had straightened up in his seat and was watching the transfer with interest. When the boy begins to make his way to the table, Malfoy prods at Goyle beside him until the hulking Slytherin moves, leaving the seat to his left empty. Reaver Bloodstone sits down with a thin, sharp-edged smile on his pale face and shakes Malfoy’s offered hand.

“That looks like trouble,” Ron commented, he too, watching the Slytherin table.

“Yeah,” Harry agreed, watching closely. Something about the newest Slytherin reminded him of someone. It wasn’t so much the face as the look on it, and it made alarm bells ring in his head. “But for who?”

“Honestly, you two. You haven’t even spoken to him yet,” Hermione said, but she sounded doubtful. Bloodstone fit right in with the rest of the cold, sneering faces and the three of them watch Daphne Greengrass blush and simper at the new student.

“Lionheart, Sparrow,” McGonagall says. Harry spent a second eyeing his Professor before turning, this time she had sounded almost fond; something that was out of character for the stern professor.

“Oh,” Hermione whispers.

“Oh, wow,” Ron says.

Harry does a double take when he sees the transfer student. Sparrow Lionheart is blonde and pretty enough, but that wasn’t what caught attention. It was the long, angry-looking scar that stretched down one cheek. Fervent whispers broke out across the Hall as she strode up to the stool and Harry overheard a lot of speculation about how she got it. Harry had to envy her poise. He hated being stared at and had never gotten used to being the center of attention. He had certainly never showed half as much confidence when under the eyes of the student body. Parvati Patil, sitting three people down, murmured something about a sphinx and Lavender Brown next to her shook her head and muttered mermaid.

“What d’you reckon did that?” Ron asks.

“Something with claws, I expect,” Hermione answers, brow furrowed. “But for it not to have been healed…” She trails off and turns a look at Ron. “I hope you aren’t planning on asking her!”

The girl nods to Professor McGonagall and sits down on the stool. She looked to be around their age, but the professor dips her chin in return. The Hat sinks down to cover blonde hair, but doesn’t quite manage to conceal the ragged end of the scar by her chin.

“She’s a shoe-in for Gryffindor, isn’t she?” Ron said after a few minutes of silence. “With a name like that, I mean.” He was craning his neck to get a good look.

“Just because her surname is Lionheart doesn’t mean-“ Hermione is interrupted by the Sorting Hat.

“GRYFFINDOR.”

This time the clapping was more enthusiastic and Sparrow Lionheart hops off the stool, shoots a smile at the Slytherin table’s newest resident, and makes her way to the table. Fred and George made a big show of shooing people out of the way to clear a seat for their newest Housemate and Ron grumbles when she sits down between them.

“Were you saying something, Hermione?” Harry grinned at his friend.

Hermione narrows her eyes at him but was distracted by McGonagall calling out the next name.

“Samarkand, Garth,” the Professor announces, and this time a dark skinned boy with white hair braided back from his face walks sedately up the aisle. He looked older than the others; the white hair didn’t help matters. Samarkand inclines his head towards McGonagall and maybe it’s the Seeker in him, but when Harry saw light glint off the transfer student’s face he leaned forwards in his seat.

“What’s that on his face?” Ron asks before Harry can.

“I think it’s a monocle,” Hermione answers him.

“A monocle? Who wears a monocle?”

“Lots of people wear monocles, Ron.”

“There was a witch at the Ministry with a monocle,” Harry adds, remembering the stern faced witch at his hearing.

The Hat sat on Samarkand’s head for a good minute. And then another. After five minutes the Hall was getting restless and the word squib began to fly around the room. Another few minutes ticked by and Harry could spot the Hat’s brim moving slightly; he remembered the Hat talking to him when he was Sorted. Was Samarkand also arguing with the Hat?

“Well now,” the Sorting Hat said at last. “That is an interesting question, young man. However, I’m sorry to say that the answer is not one I possess, but what I do know is where such a mind belongs.”

“RAVENCLAW,” The Hat announces to the stunned room.

“Was he—was he asking it questions this entire time?” Hemione asks, with wide eyes.

Samarkand stands and hands the Hat back McGonagall. The Ravenclaw table was clapping enthusiastically. Apparently having the Hat take an interest in him was a point in Samarkand’s favor, because Harry saw at least four different people trying to flag him down to sit beside them.

“Only one more,” Hermione said, pointing at the last transfer standing.

“Temple, Hannah,” McGonagall calls the last name.

Harry’s first thought that she was like Hagrid, a Half-Giant; but, no, she wasn’t quite that tall. Although the red headed girl stood what must have been at least a head over the other transfers—none of which were short people—she wasn’t giant sized. Her muscled shoulders didn’t help her imposing figure, making her look broad all around. She walked to the stool with a surprising amount of grace and, if the stool had looked small next to the others, this transfer made it seem positively tiny. 

The Hat was sat on her head longer than Bloodstone’s few seconds, but wasn’t anywhere near as long as Samarkand’s Sorting.

“Such dedication belongs in HUFFLEPUFF,” the Hat decides.

“That’s interesting, there’s one in each House,” Hermione said, as Temple was welcomed at the Hufflepuff table. “I wonder if they were chosen by their school specifically to get a good perspective on Hogwarts as a whole?”

Hermione’s theory was forgotten in the wake of the new Defense teacher’s speech.


	2. Magic Keys are Universal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time skipped further into the semester 
> 
> None of these are going to be in order, sorry.

“I can’t say I like the décor,” Reaver comments.

Sparrow doesn’t roll her eyes at him, but it’s a near thing. Instead she grabs one hand and tugs him around stacks of chairs and tables to the back of the room.

“Oh, yes, the view is so much better from here.” Reaver runs a finger over a desk and tuts when it comes away with dust. “And I thought that the purpose of House Elves was to keep this place clean. Clearly they’ve been slacking.” He wipes it on a white cloth draped over a stack of chairs.

This time Sparrow does roll her eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that, pretty bird. I might not understand your fondness for the miserable little creatures, but I must admit that they are useful.” Sparrow raises an eyebrow at him and then lowers it again as he continues. “Even if their dress-sense is appalling. I saw one wearing some woolen monstrosity the other day and—are you laughing at me?” Reaver demands.

Sparrow stills shaking shoulders and shrugs at him with a grin. Trust Reaver to be concerned about the fashion sense of House Elves.

“You would find that amusing, wouldn’t you. Your taste isn’t much better. I’ve seen that horrible coat you keep in your closet—the thing’s more patch than fabric, and such low quality fabric besides! I say you should burn it and let me buy you new ones,” Reaver coaxes, and Sparrow wrinkles her nose at the thought.

Give up her adventuring gear and end up wearing some overly ruffled velvet thing? Or, remembering his last suggestion for what she could replace her favorite traveling coat with, something that consists mostly of leather straps covering strategic places? Sparrow shakes her head at him. Maybe in private. On special occasions.

Reaver sighs at her. “You’ll learn what taste is someday.”

Sparrow will let him keep his delusions. Anyways, debating clothes was not the reason she pulled him away from playing with his minions to some far corner of the castle.

Reaching into a robe pocket she pulls out a key and doesn’t protest when it is snatched from her hand. She feels her face lift in a smile as she watches him study his prize. In many ways the former pirate resembled a particularly ambitious magpie. If something was shiny, or sparkled, or glimmered in the light he had to have it. Sparrow wouldn’t be surprised if the man had a room full of gold somewhere just so he could sleep on it. Although, that was more dragon than bird, wasn’t it?

She was pulled from thoughts of a dark scaled dragon flying off with a bag of gold in one clawed hand and a screaming virgin in the other when Reaver speaks.

“Should I assume that the reason you interrupted my little Court session has something to do with this little bobble?” Reaver holds the key up to the light. “For all intents and purposes it appears to be gold, and yet…” Reaver sparks Will and the outline of the key shimmers, delicate markings in some runic language tracing their way across metal.

Sparrow was impressed. It had taken her two days and a visit to Garth to figure out that trick.

Reaver correctly interprets her expression. “Yes, yes, we all know I’m very clever. Where did you get this?”

Sparrow pounds a fist against her open palm and then makes the sign for forest.

“Ah, one of your little strolls with Hammer. I should have known; the one time that my minions need disciplining is the one time there’s actual treasure in that blasted forest.”

Sparrow nods and holds out a hand. Reaver drops the key into it, and as soon as it stops touching his skin it stops glowing and the markings fade away. She closes a fist around it and turns to study the back wall of the room. Dull and cracked stone stares back at her.

“Should I also assume that there is a matching lock to go with the key? Or,” She doesn’t flinch when arms wrap around her waist and hot breath grazes her ear. Reaver presses closer and Sparrow leans back into him. “Were you simply in need of my company and this is a ploy to get me alone?”

Ploy? Sparrow huffs a laugh and his arms tighten around her in retaliation. Like either of them needed a ploy to get the other alone. Two Heroes in hormonal teenage bodies? Sparrow had heard of worse recipes for disaster. Although, ploys could be fun, she thought; she’d have to bring the idea back up later.

Sparrow lets herself lean against him for a second longer before she elbows him. He releases her and steps back. She ignores his pouting and crouches down to get a better look at the wall. If her memory is correct then the keyhole should be around… there.

Garth had set her up with a kind of tracking spell a few days ago, and this was the place it had led her. She hadn’t had the chance to try out the key yet; classes and homework left little time for what might be all-night dungeon crawls, but today was Friday and she wasn’t expected to show her face until Monday. Hammer and Garth were busy tonight, but really, two Heroes was already one too overkill. Sparrow had thought that this would make a good date, though. There’s not really anything more fun than a good fight and she had high hopes for a hidden room in a magic castle, school or no. Sparrow had heard the rumors about Harry Potter’s adventures.

The keyhole is tiny, and looks barely more than a coincidental grouping of cracks. She sparks her own Will into the key and when she inserts it into the keyhole the cracks begin to glow with a matching light. The light branches out, creeping across stone, and by the time they’re finished the image of a glowing door is etched into the wall in front of them.

“A little small for a hidden door,” Reaver drawls from behind her. “Although one must argue that it is not the size that matters, but what rewards it leads too.”

Sparrow turns the key with a quiet click. The light fades away until all that’s left is a normal doorway. Albeit one about a third of the usual size. Sparrow stands, brushing dust off her robes. The door is around waist-height, and while it is as wide a regular door, it must look even smaller to the beanpole that is Reaver.

Reaver studies it for a moment. “And just when I thought that this castle was getting boring.”

Sparrow pockets the key and tilts her head at him in question.

“There’s only so much entertainment I can derive from manipulating children,” he complains, “even the Death Eater ones are only so interesting. No killer instinct, such a waste of aggression.”

Fair enough. Sparrow had been getting bored too. Magic classes are fascinating and the castle is full of mysteries, but for Heroes used to a life on the road staying in one place is beginning to stifle. While Hammer and Sparrow alleviate this by picking fights in the Forbidden forest and Garth seems content enough to hole himself up in the Library, Reaver spends most of his time spreading his influence in his House. Actually, Sparrow was pretty sure he had started reaching out to Ravenclaw by now.

Sparrow begins to reach for the door handle but is halted by Reaver’s fingers clamping around her wrist. “This isn’t going to result in us being surrounded by bloodthirsty monsters, is it?” he asks.

Sparrow shrugs at him. Only one way to find out.

“Oh, good,” he purrs, sliding his hand down her wrist to her hand. “I’ve been itching for a good fight.” He brings her hand up to his face and brushes his lips across scarred knuckles.

Reaver gets a smug look when she blushes. The man delights in getting reactions out of the Hero of Bower Lake, and blushes are among his favorite.

The Hero of Skill releases her hand and draws his pistol in one smooth movement. “Ladies first,” he says and opens the door with a bow, revealing a passage way.  
Sparrow huffs at him, amused. She bends down to crawl into the passage. She’s on her hands and knees with her robes rucked up around her waist to reveal the sturdy trousers she has on when he speaks.

“Ooooh,” he says, and she can hear the leer in his voice, “I see it now, the view here really isn’t all that bad.”

Sparrow shakes her head and continues crawling. She knows when Reaver gets tired of his view and begins to follow her, because she hears him start to whine about getting his expensive, tailored robes dirty.

The passage continues on for some time. Sparrow, for once, is grateful that they’re in their younger bodies. This would be a much tighter fit if she had the muscle of her adult self.

The passage leads to some kind of cavern. It’s dark enough that Sparrow lights a fireball and holds it up for better light. Rough exposed rock surrounds them and, thankfully, there’s more than enough room to stand. She can’t quite make out the ceiling but she does spot what could be stalactites hanging down. Something is dripping in the distance and the sound echoes strangely in the cavern.

“We appear to be under the school,” Reaver says, crawling out of the opening. He stands and glares down at his now filthy clothes. He holsters his pistol and draws his wand. “Tergeo,” he casts, and runs the tip of his wand over his robes. The dust siphons off. “Much better,” he says, straightening his clothes.

Sparrow looks down at her own dirt and dust covered self. She sneezes.  
“Oh for, hold still”—he casts the cleaning charm on her—“if you spent more time learning useful spells, you could do this yourself.”

Sparrow stares at him. In her opinion, fire spells were much more useful than cleaning charms.

“You already know how to throw fireballs,” he reminds her, waving a hand at the fire cupped in her outstretched hand, “and knowing how to get bloodstains out of fabric will do wonders for improving your wardrobe. It’s certainly saved me trouble.”

Yes, but then how will she intimidate bandits if her armor isn’t covered in bloodstains? Walking through a dark forest wearing scuffed armor covered in the blood of your enemies is a great bandit deterrent. Sparrow still gets attacked by the stupid ones, but walking around Bower Lake is much less of a chore when she doesn’t look like an easy target.

“You are such a savage.”

Sparrow smirks at his exasperated expression. Reaver liked to play gentleman, but he could get down and dirty with the best of them. Something she knew first hand, the man was a terror with a gun in hand and he was no slouch with a sword either.

She looks around and spots what might have been a torch on the wall closest to them. Sparrow lobs her fireball at it and, yup, it lights up. With a crackle and a low whoosh, four more torches around the cave spring to life at the same time. Handy.

Huh. Sparrow had been in a lot of caves in her time and none were quite so boring as this. It wasn’t all that large and aside, from the now merrily crackling torches, it was empty save a quiet dark pool in the far corner of the room. Perhaps it led to the Lake? Maybe, instead of a dungeon, the passage was nothing more than an escape route.

She wanders over to the pool and peers into its depths. Nothing peers back, no tentacles start emerging, not even a ripple appears to break its still surface.

“Somehow I expected more.” Reaver pokes around the edge of the pool for a bit before sighing. “This is what you pulled me away from my delightful gathering for? I had just gotten Montgomery to start sobbing. Really, the boy needs to learn better manners; it’s hard to get tearstains off of leather couches, you know. And don’t even get me started on what Moon did today…”

Sparrow watches him pace for a minute. He’d just gotten to detailing why Theodore Nott had been promoted—something to do with someone named Edgecomb and a spoon—when Sparrow gives up on making sense of Slytherin politics and sits down with her back against the wall. She takes off her robes and uses them to keep off the cold stone of the floor.

“…and then Grant had the audacity—the sheer nerve—to say that I needed not be so hard on him, he has Quidditch practice tomorrow! Of course, by that time Bletchley wasn’t really up to lifting his wand, let alone flitting around on a broomstick.” He stops and turns a thoughtful look at dark water. “Perhaps I was too hard on him,” he ponders aloud, before waving a dismissive hand and starting to pace again, “on the other hand, he knows what he did.”

Well this was a bust. No monsters, no treasure, there wasn’t even a giant door with an oddly expressive face to exchange riddles with. Sparrow slumps harder into rough stone. The Forest might be fun, but there were only so many spiders one could kill before they started to steer clear of intrepid adventurers.

Taking another look around the empty room and wishing for at least some wisps to appear—Hollow Men were fun—she sighs.

Sparrow had been constantly fighting for more than two decades. First there was training, and then her quest for revenge against Lucien, and then there were Heroic things to do like clearing the roads of bandits or sweeping hobbes caves. She’d never been so not-busy. Classes only took up a small portion of the day and she could only stand so much social interaction. Even learning a new kind of magic could only hold her attention for so long; many of the spells were useless to her outside of the more combat orientated ones, and those she learned more from self-study than in Defense class. Turning rats into teacups wasn’t really the kind of thing that would keep a Balverine from chewing her face off. She wasn’t built for peace.

Although, there were some advantages to being in one place for a while. She saw her fellow Heroes more often for one; no longer only seeing them when needed for quests or just running into them by coincidence when out for errands. It was nice to hang around people who were just as strong as she was. They didn’t trail after her like lost puppies and beg for attention, or shy away from the dents and stains of her armor and what they meant. They also didn’t run screaming whenever she cast a spell, which was always a bonus. Even the most accepting people back in Albion had an almost instinctual fear of magic. It got a little tiring to be a spectacle every time she walked into a town. Crowds followed her and whispered the latest rumors behind her back. She was either something to be feared or something to be worshiped and no one approached except fans or people who wanted Sparrow the Lionheart to solve their problems for them. Or people who followed her around and blurted out marriage proposals. This other world and her non-existent fame here was a much needed break.

Another advantage was seeing Reaver almost every day. Oh, she made a point of stopping by his Mansion whenever she was in the area and they met up on occasion, but it certainly wasn’t frequent. She had duties in Bowerstone and he had a criminal empire to run. People didn’t expect them to get along—cough, Hammer, cough—but Sparrow liked him. Oh, he was a horrible person and she wouldn’t be surprised if someone brutally murdered him someday in some much earned revenge, but Sparrow still liked him. She spent a lot of her time being Lionheart the Hero, being nice and kind and helpful to everyone she met. It was freeing to be around someone who wasn’t uncomfortable with Sparrow, the street-rat who stole food to survive and watched her sister die. The Sparrow who’d vowed bloody revenge against a man at age five—and took it two decades later.

Reaver understood her in ways that should have made her uncomfortable. He understood her love of fighting—of power—more than Garth or Hammer ever could. Hannah might like a good fight, but she didn’t dance across a battlefield and laugh at the corpses left in her wake. Hannah liked winning, but she liked honorable battles that meant something, that had a worthy reason, some kind of cause. Garth only fought when he deemed it necessary. Sparrow liked seeing people challenge her and then be utterly crushed. Reaver also understood why she tried too hard to make people like her. Garth didn’t get why she spent so much of her time pandering to people, going on fetch quests or finding lost items, he didn’t have her fear of being nothing. Of being the skinny waif on a street corner begging for food and watching the good citizens glance past her with upturned noses. And Hannah was raised in the Temple of Light as the Abbot’s beloved daughter. High above the peaceful Oakville, she’d never known stomach-pained hunger or blood-freezing cold or breath-stealing fear. She had a happy childhood, however it had ended. She didn’t watch people sneer at dirty clothes and sunken in cheeks before walking away. Attention meant power, and power was everything to the woman who once had none.

Reaver understood wanting power. He’d built a career on it. He understood putting on a show for people, letting them see what they wanted to. For her, it was being a Hero. For him, it was getting people to forget that he was a Hero.

Bloodstone was a lawless place, theft and murder were common and no guards patrolled the area. The docks were a favorite stop for pirates. It was also right next to Wraithmarsh and every so often things would creep out of the swamp and invade the town. It also wouldn’t still be there if it didn’t have a Hero guarding it.

Once, when she was still a child that still used wooden swords, Theresa had told her that destiny was a place reached regardless of the path used to reach it. Sparrow has long since traded in wooden toys for weapons made of iron and steel and knew now that the Seer hadn’t been talking about Lucien’s death, but being a Hero. And if anything could have been learned from the fall of the Heroes’ Guild then it was that Heroes were not always Good.

People seem to have forgotten that. They saw Garth’s calm wisdom and Hammer’s friendly boisterousness and Sparrow’s helpful attitude and thought them Heroes. Then they saw Reaver with his ruthlessness and the way he patronized and threatened and forgot that he was a Hero too. Just as, if not more, strong as the rest of them. There seemed to be some disconnect in their minds, between the words Reaver and Hero.

But Sparrow liked that he was so unapologetically himself. That he eschewed all those polite social norms whenever he felt like it. She liked that he could draw a gun and shoot a man in five places in the time it took a person to blink. Reaver was always beautiful, but in battle, face calm and hands steady, he was stunning. He wasn’t a civilian who cowered at the sight of a weapon, or a guard who would watch warily with a grip on his own. Reaver was a fellow Hero and he liked battle as much as she did. Also, he really was very pretty and wouldn’t break if she gripped him too hard. Heroes tended to be stronger than average and Sparrow got tired of holding back whenever she wanted to touch someone, so now she just didn’t bother.

She liked him because he fit. He was everything a Good Hero shouldn’t like, but everything Sparrow admired. And she knew that he liked her at least in part because she wasn’t afraid of him—and he enjoyed “corrupting her,” or at least that’s what he told people when they asked why they hung around each other. Not that many did. Sparrow was pretty sure that people did their best to ignore it, as it didn’t really fit into their images as the Hero of Bower Lake and Reaver the Immortal, them being something like friends.

(Hannah once asked her why she wasn’t more bothered by the fact that Reaver was a murderer several times over. Sparrow stared at the woman who watched her slay men by the dozen for a tournament and then pick up the bloodstained bag of prize money from under a still twitching corpse. Did the fact that they were bandits mean that they weren’t people, too?)

Taking one last look around the cave they were in, Sparrow sighs heavily. She could explore the pool, see if it led anywhere. But then she’d be cold and wet until Reaver took pity on her and used Drying and Warming Charms. Maybe she could drag Garth away from the Library for a day, he might be able to find another door or some kind of connecting passage. She’s just about to get up and leave when she realizes—

That the two of them are alone. And not in a dorm room that could be walked in on at any moment. And that the flickering firelight makes Reaver’s pale skin shimmer.  
She turns her attention back to the Hero that had accompanied her on this disappointing quest. He was still pacing back and forth, ranting. Reaver was good at ranting. His voice was smooth and he had a way with words that got and kept attention. It was little wonder how he had talked himself into a position of power in his House. And the pithy comments he injected every other sentence or so were entertaining. Sparrow could listen to him all day.

He also, Sparrow thought, reaching a hand down the front of her trousers, had a way of being distractingly pretty when he was angry. Passion colored his face and his eyes gleamed in torchlight as he detailed the various ways he kept his underlings in line. Sparrow had a vivid flashback to Bloodstone Manor, when Reaver had pinned her to his overly ostentatious bed and spent over an hour telling her what exactly he wanted to do to her. And what he wanted her to do to him. And an all manner of filthy things, that Sparrow had snapped and lunged, cutting Reaver off midsentence, to swallow those words with her tongue.

“—and blackmail is so useful, a bit plebian, but what can one do when restricted to the more gentle forms of coercion? Oh, if only I was able to—"

She spreads her legs and strokes, remembering silk sheets.

“—has been promising, not to say that poison hadn’t been considered. It would have to be undetectable to the charm, though, which makes it more trouble than it’s worth. Those rings are much too convenient—I want one. Alas, I have not the resources. Currently. Perhaps in the future?”

She watches his robes whip and flare as he turns, her head hitting the cave wall behind her as she grinds down onto her fingers.

“—werewolves. Not the best plan, I will admit, but needs must. Not to mention the—”

Letting Reaver’s voice wash over her, Sparrow lets her eyes slip closed and takes her time. One hand between her legs, the other teasing at her shirt.

“—and then Hammer had the audacity to scold me like I was some kind of misbehaving pup! As if it was my fault that Macmillan can’t complete a simple task—”

She lets out a quiet moan—more of a whimper than anything—and Reaver stops.

After a moment, in which Sparrow makes no move to hide what she’d been doing: “Am I boring you?” he asks, voice low.

Sparrow hums and twists her fingers harder, letting a gasp escape her lips.

“I do believe I am boring you, if you have to make your own entertainment,” Reaver says, voice closer now. Knees thud onto stone and, when Sparrow opens half-lidded eyes, it’s to see him kneeling between her legs. She arches a bit, wanting him closer. He leans forwards and—lips less than a hairsbreadth from her own—whispers: “Well? Go on. I’d hate to have interrupted you.”

Sparrow opens her eyes all the way, then, to glare at him. She wanted him to touch her, damn it. At his expectant look, she fake-pouts up at him, dramatically fluttering her eyelashes. He raises an eyebrow, but the corner of his mouth lifts. He pointedly leans back to rest his weight on his feet. She does actually pout then, as the motion takes him further from her.

Well, if this was how he wanted to play it—

Sparrow withdraws the hand from her trousers, and, watching his eyes dilate at the wetness clinging to it, draws it up to her mouth and licks. She waits until it’s clean—and Reaver is looking like he wished he hadn’t challenged her—to remove her fingers from between her lips with a wet pop.

—she’s going to make him regret that decision.

Sparrow had just decided to see how long Reaver would be able to sit by and watch her if she started begging when the game was interrupted by something splashing behind them.

They’re on their feet, weapons and wands drawn, in less than a second, just in time to see a skeleton climb its way out of the pool.

A fight! Finally!

Reaver twirls his gun irritably. “It couldn’t have waited half an hour?” 

Ten minutes later:

“And there’s another one for me! You’re falling behind, pretty bird!” Reaver cackles and rolls away from the nearest corpse. It’s skull explodes into a shower of bone fragments and dust. He’d headshot it mid-roll.

Sparrow knows he’s not looking, but she shoots a smug look in his direction anyway, because—

Sparrow releases her spell and, with a blast of fire, takes out twenty of the things. Bones crack in immense heat and what little remains of clothing the walking corpses wore go up in smoke. Ash settles onto the stone floor.

Reaver dances out of the way of a bony arm. “Touché,” he says, bringing his pistol level to an exposed skull. “I yield gracefully,” he concedes, petulantly, and pulls the trigger.  
With the main bulk of the undead gone, they quickly pick off any stragglers; Reaver alternates between his pistol and various curses and Sparrow using the opportunity to practice her Incendio charm.

“I can’t help but to wonder why there’s a horde of undead underneath a school. Unless… perhaps the children that failed their exams?” Reaver postulates, chin in his hand. He idly shoots a still-twitching arm.

Sparrow shrugs at him, she didn’t think the corpses had belonged to wizards, and most of the skeletons had appeared to be fully grown. Some still wore rotting armor and a few had hands intact enough to grip a sword—and the most they did was flail them around with a kind of rabid clumsiness. There wasn’t any intelligence, not even as much as the average Hollow Man. All the skeletons had done was try to get as close as possible to claw and bite at living flesh.

Only one of them had hung back from the rest of the horde. It had stayed close to the pool and clacked its jaw at them ominously, but not much else. Sparrow had set that one on fire. The undead might not have been as flammable as Hollow Men—having arisen from the water and all—but Sparrow was good at fire spells and a little dampness was hardly going to stop her.

Sparrow draws her sword from inside a robe pocked—Undetectable Expansion charms were beyond her skills, but not beyond Garth’s—and goes to poke at the only odd one. She moves aside blackened bones and tatters of what might have been, once upon a time, some kind of scaly looking robe to see a wand. Now age and fire damaged, it was little more than a collection of splinters. Sparrow nudges it with the tip of her sword and it promptly collapses in of itself with a puff of ash. All that remains is a single gleaming strand of hair.

Sparrow leans in to take a closer look. She didn’t know wand lore, but that wasn’t from a unicorn. For one, it was bright red, and for another, the more she looked at it the less it resembled hair at all. It looked more like a piece of a feather from a bird than something that had come from a horse’s mane.

She pockets it, making sure not to put it in her sword-pocket so she won’t lose it, and straightens up just in time to duck a femur flying her way.

Reaver is rifling through a pile of bones.

“Boring,” he says, tossing a rusted dagger behind him.

Sparrow steps to the side and watches it shatter when it hits the wall.

“Ugly,” Reaver scoffs, slinging away a warped pendent by the remains of its chain.

Sparrow winces a little at the noise it makes when it hits the ground.

“Oh, what’s thi—ugh.”

A glass eye ends up embedded in a stone wall. Sparrow twitches a little at the way it stares at her.

“Oh-ho! Finally, swag!” Reaver holds aloft a key, the gold of it richly shining in the light.  
Sparrow waits until she’s sure he’s done rummaging to make her way over. The key is identical to the one sitting in her pocket. Sparrow pulls it out to compare them, and yup. Exactly the same.

“Interesting,” Reaver says. He takes out his wand and taps at the key a few times, muttering under his breath. Looking around the cave with narrowed eyes, he twirls his wand over the key. “No matching magical signatures.” He puts his wand away. “There’s not a matching door in this area.”

Sparrow nabs the new key from his hand. Ignoring his protests, she makes her way back to the first door, the one they entered through. When she sparks the magic in the key and it doesn’t so much as budge when applied to the keyhole, her theory is confirmed: the keys will only open specific doors. And, according to Reaver’s spell, there wasn’t another door in this room. But there must be some way to find the next door! Preferably some way that didn’t involve trekking back through the castle to ask Garth. Then a thought occurs to her. She had thought earlier that the pool might be an underwater tunnel connecting to the Black Lake, but what if…

She turns to stare at the pool.

“Oh, no,” Reaver says, “you look like you’ve had an idea.”

Sparrow would take offense to his tone, but he has experience with her ideas and she can respect the dread in his voice.

She smiles apologetically at him. And then turns a pointed look to the water.

Reaver closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Tell me your idea,” he said the word like it left a bad taste in his mouth, “doesn’t involve my person submerged in a dark and mysterious goop.”

Sparrow thinks that’s going a bit far. It’s not really all that goopy. Besides. He lived next to a swamp. A haunted swamp. For centuries. He’s got to be used to goo by now.  
He takes another look at the pool. “The things I do for treasure.”

Two days later:

“You’re telling me that there’s a web of tunnels underneath the school full of monsters and that’s where you two have been all weekend?” Hammer asks.

They’re all sitting in the Hufflepuff Common Room, spread out on various squashy couches. The other students were all carefully ignoring the three non-Hufflepuffs in their Common Room.

Sparrow nods at her.

“Oh. And here I thought…” she trails off.

“Why, Hannah,” Reaver drawls, “what did you think we were doing?” At her blush he continues, “Oh, naughty naughty, here we were preforming valorous deeds in the name of exploration” -and in the name of boredom- “and you thought we were off gallivanting somewhere—perhaps even… canoodling.”

Well, that too, Sparrow recalls. They’d really only left the newly discovered dungeon for food and the occasional nap. All that… fighting… has done wonders for her stress levels.

“Monsters, you say?” Garth asks, ignoring the byplay, “I was under the impression that the school wards were made to keep out such things.” He holds up one of their key collection to his monocle. “And you said that this one was the master key? It resonates differently than the others.”

Sparrow nods again. That one opened all the doors they had found. Of course, that key was the last one they had found. It had been sitting on a pedestal in the middle of what looked like a ritual chamber, guarded by two grotesque looking statues that sprang to life as soon as Reaver laid a hand on the key. At least those ones didn’t try to insult you, Sparrow had had enough of talking statuary, thank you.

(She’d had a lot of fun making them explode, though.)

“Interesting…” Garth says, before turning to interrogate Sparrow. “And the undead showed no sign of water decay?”

Sparrow shrugs. The corpses had seemed intact enough before she and Reaver gotten through with them.

“A stasis charm? But that would imply that the monsters were put there purposely…”  
Hmm. A trap? Or some kind of defense for the school? Sparrow had been under the impression that Hogwarts had been founded during harrowing times for witches and wizards. It would make some amount of sense to keep guardians around; especially if the tunnel web was meant to be an escape route for students before it had been forgotten and left for decay.

“What? Some nutter left a bunch of monsters around just in case something attacked the castle? What if they had gone after the students instead?” Hammer asks.

Sparrow agrees with her there. She and Reaver were students and the monsters hadn’t skipped a beat before attacking. Granted, she and Reaver were used to being attacked, but she didn’t think some of the other students would fare so well.

“They’re all gone? No chance of any of them making an appearance in the Great Hall during dinner, is there?” Hammer leans nonchalantly back into the couch, but Sparrow sees the way her eyes flicker over the group of first years playing gob stones by the fire.

“We were very thorough.” Reaver waves an indifferent hand. “No need to worry about your pack of little barbarians.”

Sparrow nods her agreement. They’d been sure to clear out all the rooms they could find—half to get rid of all the monsters and half to see if there was any treasure.

“Was there anything else of note in the tunnels?” Garth asks, still peering at the key.

Sparrow grabs a roll of parchment and a quill from her bag. She quickly sketches out the rooms she remembers and lists their defenses in tiny scrawl next to them. After a moment, she doodles tiny monsters in the rooms for good measure.

Sparrow thinks back. There was the chamber with the not-Shadow creatures that tried to strangle them, but Sparrow thought those were just a nest of Lethifolds. And then there was the corridor that was less of a corridor and more of a giant pit that you couldn’t see the bottom of and the only way across was a frayed rope that Sparrow was very sure wouldn’t have held the weight of a pixie let alone the two of them. Sparrow had applied a judicious use of Time spells and raced her way across while the rope came undone beneath her feet. Once on the other side, she was beset by restless dead that swarmed her in droves. Reaver picked them off at distance with his pistol while she bashed apart bones with her blade. They’d found a staircase etched into the stone hidden by an illusion. It had led to the bottom of the pit, which had been filled with muck that hid some kind of long fingered creatures that did their utmost to drown them. Reaver had taken great pleasure in breaking all those spindly fingers with an illegal bone breaking curse.

Sparrow had just used her boots.

Then there was the hallway that led to an unopenable door that had snakes carved over every inch of it. None of the keys worked on that one and the application of fire spells didn’t work either. They’d left it alone after a while of trying to break in.

She circles that room and scans her miniature map. It looks like someone had tried to design a maze while drunk and then had forgotten their original intent and tried to draw a haunted house. She shrugs and passes it to Reaver, who stares at it for a second and then tells her to never become an artist. He quickly sketches out an additional four rooms and lists out the monsters within in a neat script.

Reaver gives the finished map to Garth. After signing it with a flourish of his quill.

“This is …descriptive,” Garth says, studying the map intently. He rolls it up and sticks it in his robe sleeve. “I’ll cross-reference the creatures in the Library and try to find an answer for the presence of so many undead.”

“You do that.” Hannah stands and stretches. “I’m going to find a good bludgeoning curse in case any of the bony buggers decide castle residents look tasty.”


	3. Mini-Heroes Unite!

Sparrow the Lionheart, Hero of Bower Lake, wakes to a cool breeze and what feels like the absolute worst hang-over she’s ever suffered. Including the one she’d had when she was fifteen and Mutt had sniffed out a mostly full bottle of Any Port in the Storm buried out by the lake shore. Drinking that had been a mistake, and not just because she’d had to fight off the swarm of beetles that had appeared while still drunk.

She’s sprawled on her back on top of—she reaches out a hand and something crunches in between shaky fingers—a carpet of dead and decaying leaves, desperately trying not to puke her brains out. She cracks open one eye and sees red hair. She relaxes slightly at the sight. Wherever she was, Hammer was here too. Bent over and acting out the world’s worst hangover, but present. And, judging by the cursing coming from her right, Reaver was here as well. She drags her eyes open further and spots a blurry image of Garth with his back to what must be a tree, meditating and clutching at his stomach.

Did they—did they travel via broken Gate again? Sparrow groans aloud and flings an arm over aching eyes. Once had been enough and she doesn’t care if the world is ending again, she had never wanted to do that more than once. Last time she had woken up locked in a cage in a swamp teeming with monsters with her head feeling like she had gotten on the wrong side of a troll.

Ugh, everything ached. Sparrow sighs, pushes through the pain, and levers herself to sit upright, eyes still closed. Wherever they had ended up, it might be dangerous; even if it didn’t smell like Wraithmarsh, there were always bandits lurking somewhere. She gropes around blindly for her sword and finds it half buried in leaves, less than a foot from her.

She starts to drag it towards herself, silently apologizing for letting it be discarded like that, but when her hands meet the grip she freezes in place. Her eyes fly open.

Yes, that was her sword, but the grip felt different. And considering that she had been using this particular sword for years…

She twitches at the sight of her hand around the sword handle. It looks off. Too small.  
Sparrow takes another look at her fellow Heroes and feels her eyes widen at the sight of them. Hammer looked like the monk she’d met at the Temple of Light, and she hadn’t seen Garth look that young since she’d been a child.

She whips her head around—regretting the action immediately when it makes her head spin, but she needs to know—and Reaver looks younger than she’s ever seen him, face boyishly youthful instead of the timeless man she’d always known him as.

Sparrow scrambles to her feet and starts swaying immediately, but she squares her shoulders and stumbles over to the Hero closest to her—a still bent over Hammer. She tugs at too-big armor until Hammer looks up.

“Wha—Sparrow?”

Sparrow nods.

“What happened to you?” Hammer asks.

Sparrow points at Garth and Reaver before pointing to Hammer.

“The rest of us too?”

Hammer stiffens suddenly and turns to retch into a bush. “Urgh,” she groans, not straightening back up again. “What happened?”

Sparrow shrugs at her back.

“Why,” Sparrow hears a voice ask from behind her, in a slightly higher pitched version of Reaver’s tones, “do I look like I’ve only just discovered the wonders of shaving?”

Sparrow turns to see young-Reaver examining his face in a hand-held looking glass. Sparrow shrugs again and carefully makes her way over to her discarded pack, thankfully lying on the ground not too far from where she had woken up. She digs out a health potion and throws it back. One day they’re going to improve the taste of these things. She tosses the bottle aside with a grimace. Today is not that day.

Feeling much better now, she grabs three more potions and presses one into the clammy hands of Hammer with a pat on the shoulder. She sets Garth’s onto the ground next to him. For Reaver she removes the mirror from his hand and exchanges it for a bottle.

He knocks it back like whiskey. “My Hero,” he says, and it’s not nearly as sarcastic as usual, before he motions for the mirror again. Sparrow hands it back to him and he promptly goes back to staring at his reflection with narrowed eyes. Sparrow brushes a shoulder against his and he takes a break to study her intently.

“You look young,” he says. He brushes blonde hair away from her face and gently grasps her chin to tilt it this way and that. Sparrow puts up with it for a minute before huffing at him.

She motions towards him with a raised brow. Same to him. It’s a little odd to see Reaver’s eyes peering out of such a youthful face, but he looks much the same: pale skin, dark and curly disheveled hair, same cute little birthmark under one eye. He’s missing his goatee though.

“As much as I enjoy my youthful good looks, this is going a bit far.” Reaver runs a hand through his hair and wrinkles his nose. “I think I’m actually taller than you now. It’s almost disconcerting.”

Sparrow blinks and—huh. He’s right. She has to look up to meet his eyes instead of the other way around now.

Sparrow takes stock of the situation. They were in a forest that she didn’t recognize; and she could recognize most of the forests in Albion, so either they were in one she hadn’t managed to explore yet or they weren’t anywhere near civilization. They still had their clothes and packs and her money bag was still filled with gold, so this wasn’t the world’s strangest robbery. Oh. And they were all children again. That was a new one.

Garth, having finished his potion, stands. “This is an odd situation,” he says, with a calm that Sparrow envies.

“No? Truly?” says Reaver.

Garth ignores him. “I’d say that we regressed to our younger appearances, but,” he motions towards Sparrow’s face, “unless I’m mistaken, you didn’t have that until adulthood.”

Sparrow reaches up to touch her face and feels the roughness of her scar. He’s right. If she now looked to be around the age of the others then she wouldn’t have this.

“So, what? We only kind of look like kids now instead of having been changed all the way?” Hammer asks, still looking green. Sparrow passes her another potion. Hammer salutes her with it in thanks before chugging it down.

“What I’m saying is that, despite appearances, we have only been de-aged superficially. Case in point: we all retain the memories of our adulthoods, do we not?”

Sparrow briefly imagined what would have happened if four adolescent potential Heroes woke up in the middle of a forest surrounded by strangers. Considering that she knew that at least two of them were very much shoot first kind of people at that age…

“Yes. Very reassuring. We’ve only been a little kiddy-fied.” Reaver scoffs, and starts checking his gear. The first thing he pulls out is his pistol, which he runs careful and attentive fingers over before moving on the check the rest of his pockets.

Hammer looks up past the trees canopying overhead and says, “We should figure out where we are, too.” She points skyward, where it’s become evident that the sun was going down, rapidly. “It’s getting dark and we might be in Balverine territory.”

Sparrow’s got a fireball lit before Hammer finishes saying the word Balverine. Reaver pokes her and she extinguishes it with a blush. Stupid reflexes. Stupid jumping furballs.

“Finished?” he asks.

Sparrow shrugs at him sheepishly.

“We are not in Albion,” Garth announces, and Sparrow chokes on air.

What.

“What,” Reaver says.

“Not in—Well, where are we?” Hammer asks, eyes wide.

“The sun in is the wrong position for this time of year. So either we’ve managed to travel to a different side of the world, or we’ve managed to travel through time,” Garth explains, and right now Sparrow doesn’t envy his calm so much as want to know what exactly he mixed with that potion.

“Oh, phooey. He’s right.” Reaver squints up at the sky. He whips a telescope out of a coat pocket and holds it up to his face. “Those are not the right constellations for this time of year… or any time of year, really.”

“Oh, now the stars are wrong, too!” says Hammer, kicking at a tree. “Great, first us, then the sun, now the bloody stars have decided to go on vacation as well!”

“Why do these things always happen when I’m with you three?” Reaver wonders to himself, folding his telescope back up. “First my mansion was blown up—oh wait. That was me. But my ship being blown up was not me, and then I was kidnapped to be a participant in some kind of arcane ritual which drains me of my life force to restore some madman’s age and beauty—oh wait, I do believe I’m getting some things confused. Regardless, life was much simpler before I got involved with you lot.”

Sparrow stares at him with a deadpan expression. Yes, the immortal pirate who routinely sacrificed people to things that lived in a swamp had such a boring and uneventful life.

“What?” Reaver asks, innocently.

Sparrow shakes her head at him and turns back to Garth. Who is currently in a meditative position and ….floating midair, glowing with Will.

Right. Of course he is.


	4. Potion Mishaps for Fun and Profit

Sparrow had never made a potion before. Drank them, yeah—usually after getting her ass handed to her in combat—but the art of potion making was beyond her. She left that to the alchemists she bought them from. It couldn’t be that difficult, though, could it?   
They let eleven year old children do this and Sparrow would like to think she was as competent as the average eleven year old.

She rolls her shoulders and pushes up her robe sleeves. Right, first things first; she needs to mince the ears of a bat pickled in water gathered under a full moon.

She fishes the ingredients out from her potion’s kit minces the tiny ears after draining the moon water into the cauldron. Making certain they’re all roughly the same size, she scraps them into the cauldron and gets started grinding beetle eyes. The eyes are tiny, much smaller than the ones at home. She tosses the beetle powder into the cauldron and watches the water bloom into a silvery blue. It’s almost pretty. For bat ears and bug parts.

Next, she needs two handfuls of blisterwart stewed in…. slug intestines…….what? And people drink these? Sparrow suddenly recalls all the potions she’s drank in the past. Surely none of those contained anything like this, though. Right?

Sparrow pokes dubiously at her blisterwart. Chunks of fungus are coated in a thick slime and it makes a squelching noise that makes her ears curl. Urgh. She narrows her eyes at it. It glistens wetly in the torchlight. She’s grateful for her dragon hide gloves as she uses her knife to scoop the slimy substance into the potion. It hits the surface and sinks, turning the potion a lighter shade of blue.

Now for the mint leaves. According to the textbook the mint is supposed to “coole the potion, to allow for the horne to worke best.” Sparrow weights out two ounces of leaves and gets to shredding them into strips.

“Longbottom,” Professor Snape barks. “What are you doing to those slugs?”

Sparrow looks up to see the Professor standing in front of her, his dark glare fixed on the student she was sharing a desk with. Neville Longbottom stutters an explanation and Sparrow watches the Professor wave his wand and vanishes the slugs from Neville’s workstation.

“Blisterwart, Mr. Longbottom, is not a species of slug, however they are prepared. In the future, I expect you to use the correct ingredients, instead of trying to create your own, potentially poisonous, concoction. Do you understand?”

Snape glares harder at Neville’s mumbled assent. He sweeps away and Sparrow goes back to her textbook. Now she needed newt’s eyes, but only the blue ones.

Did she even have those? Do newt eyes come in blue? She searches her potion’s kit and finally extracts a glass vial filled with the slimy things, all of the irises a bright blue.

“Pssst.” Neville Longbottom pokes her with the end of his stirring rod. Sparrow looks over and he gestures at the mint leaves she still has out. “Could I borrow some mint?” he asks quietly, and Sparrow passes a few leaves to him.

His potion is fizzing and when Sparrow leans closer it’s apparent that it in no way resembles the textbook’s “smooth cerulean liquid,” instead it’s bright orange and lumpy. Bubbles are slow to break the surface and when they do thick, green-tinted steam escapes them.

“Thank you,” he mutters, after shooting a quick glance behind him, like he’s expecting someone to be lurking.

She watches him shred the leaves and, with his tongue between his teeth, adds them one by one to the cauldron. Sparks shoot out and, when one hits Neville’s hand, he squeals in surprise and drops the remaining leaves into the orange mass.

The potion abruptly goes blue and thick smoke starts to rise off it’s surface. Sparrow watches the goop begin to bubble furiously and leans back in her stool when it begins to expand.

“Oh, no.” Neville moans, and Sparrow grabs him just in time to pull him away from his cauldron as his potion expands past the rim and hits the fire underneath. With a fwomp, it explodes.

Chunks of goop rain down over the classroom and Sparrow hears it splash into several of the nearest potions. A low buzzing noise fills the classroom and—Sparrow peaks over the edge of the desk in time to see three other potions go up. She pulls her head back underneath the table and waits until she hears her classmates stop shouting to deem it safe to emerge.

Sparrow releases Neville. He crawls out from where they were sheltered underneath the desk and takes in the scene with despair. Sparrow stands and takes in the chaos. Blue goo is stuck to almost every available surface on the Gryffindor side of the room and several of the students are drenched in the stuff. Dean Thomas is wiping it out of his eyes and Lavender Brown is bemoaning the state of her hair. Hermione Granger wasn’t cursing, but judging from her expression she’d like to be as she pokes at her potion, which was now letting out some putrid smelling green smoke.

Sparrow’s own potion was also a lost cause. It had dried out, leaving bright red paste cracking inside of her cauldron. Tilting her head, she leans in closer; it looks a little like blood, actually.

Well. Not terrible for a first attempt.

She gives a shrug and goes to help Thomas in pulling the congealing goo from his face.

Reaver deftly adds another newt’s eye to the cauldron.

“You seem practiced at that,” Nott comments, watching Reaver stir with one hand and leaf through his potion’s textbook with the other. “Do you brew often?”

Reaver doesn’t look up from studying a rather fascinating recipe for inducing talking boils. “It’s not all that different from poison-making.”

After a moment, Nott nods. “There are similarities,” he says, ”but I find a combination of the two holds the most impact.”

Reaver does look up then. “Oh? Something worth investigating.” He drops a tarantula's leg into the cauldron and stirs it three times counterclockwise. His potion turns a sky blue and a pale haze begins to lift from its surface.

Snape sweeps by the Slytherins and nods once at their potion before continuing onwards to the Gryffindor side of the room. “Longbottom,” he barks. “What are you doing to those slugs?”

Draco Malfoy finishes adding spider parts to his own potion and, while he waits the required eight minutes for the potion to simmer, turns around in his seat to address Reaver.

“I’m glad to see our newest addition has some grasp on the subtler arts.” He sneers in Gryffindor’s direction. “It would have been a shame if there were two Longbottoms in the same class. He’s melted enough cauldrons that I’m surprised they still sell them to him.”

Nott scoffs. “A shame? You mean a hazard. It’s hard to believe that he’s had the privilege of tutors before Hogwarts and is still so dismal.”

“Longbottom being the nervous one sitting next to Sparrow?” Reaver asks. He snickers at their confirmations. “And the odds of something exploding have just doubled.”

“Newest Gryffindor’s no good at potions either?” Malfoy asks.

“I’ve no idea,” Reaver says airily, “only that things have a tendency to go boom when in her presence.”

Nott and Malfoy both nod at this.

“Like Finnegan, then. Why he hasn’t been expelled…. Something explodes or catches fire every other spell he casts. He set fire to his desk in Charms just yesterday.” Malfoy shakes his head. “Pansy is still upset about her favorite scarf.”

“Upset?” Nott mutters.

Malfoy doesn’t seem to have heard him but—“She won’t shut up about it, truthfully.”  
Reaver is about to comment when he spots Sparrow ducking underneath the nearest cover. He flicks his wand and sets a shield over his cauldron even as he scoots his stool over to put Malfoy between himself and Sparrow’s direction.

“What are you—”

Blue goo fountains up from the cauldron Sparrow had just ducked away from. It rains down into other potions and sets off a chain of flare ups.

Reaver snickers at Hermione Granger’s cauldron, which had previously been impeccable, and was now belching green smoke.

Malfoy reaches back to touch the back of his slicked back hair and Reaver doesn’t even try to hide his smirk at the face he makes when he pulls his hand away and a string of goop follows it.

“Mr. Samarkand,” Snape says, face blank, “in what way does this resemble Teophina’s Ghost Repelling Solution?”

“I apologize, Professor, but the only time that Aurelian Blossom Extract can be brewed is under this particular full moon,” Garth says, and adds another drop of diluted sunshine after precisely forty-two seconds.

“I see,” Snape says, expression still blank except for the tiniest gleam in his eyes when he looks at the bubbling potion. “You ground the unicorn horn with a silver mortar?”

Garth nods and tips in a vial of silvery powder.

“And you picked the orange blossom during the new moon, after which you let it soak in exactly one lunar cycle’s worth of light?”

“Professor Sprout was kind enough to allow me use of one of her greenhouses.”

Snape stares at Garth for a second longer. “You will write me three rolls of parchment on the process, as well as comparing it to the use of the lunar cycle in Teophina’s Solution.” The professor turns and begins to stride away. “Oh,” he pauses, “and ten points from Ravenclaw.”

“Temple!” Ernie Macmillan yelps. “Those are holly leaves, not mistletoe!”

“Oh, bother.” Hannah drops the bundle of leaves back onto the table. “Thanks, Ernie.”

Ernie puffs up. “Of course, we Hufflepuffs ought to stick together, especially now, I say!”

Hannah grabs the mistletoe leaves and tosses them into the cauldron. The potion stops bubbling and turns an eye searing shade of emerald green.

“Still, I appreciate it,” Hannah says, “I know I’m not the best potion’s partner.”

“Nonsense,” Ernie says, “you just need a bit more practice, is all.”

“Temple! Macmillan!” Snape snaps from behind them. They both jump. “Chatter on your own time, two points from Hufflepuff. Each.”


	5. Wands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sparrow  
> Sycamore—Questing and adventurous  
> Whisker from a Chinese Fireball—fast, clever, aggressive, females larger than males, tolerant of other dragons
> 
> Garth  
> Pear—Well respected and resilient  
> Thunderbird tail feather—powerful and difficult to master
> 
> Reaver  
> Red oak—Dueling, quick witted, fast reactions  
> Thestral tail hair—linked with death
> 
> Hammer  
> Fir—Strength of purpose, survivors wand  
> Phoenix tail feather—spiritual journeys

Sparrow stares down at the stick in her hands. The last wand he’d had her try left the door to the shop hanging off one hinge.

“Sycamore, ten and a quarter inches, with a core made from a whisker of a particularly friendly Chinese Fireball. Give it a wave.”

Sparrow exchanges a look with Hammer.

“Go on,” the red head urges her, but Sparrow sees the way her friend edges back, closer to the door.

Sparrow twirls the wand as she would her favorite short sword and her grip automatically tightens when red and orange feathers shoot out and spark in the air.

“Oooh.” Hammer claps. “Nice work, Sparrow.”

“Yes, yes.” The wand shopkeeper turns pale eyes to Sparrow, who was blinking down at the wand in her hand. “Sycamore—a wood for adventurers, and a dragon’s whisker willingly given. Not the usual heartstring,” he mutters to himself, “but the wand shouldn’t suffer for it, no, I suspect you will have to convince it to be less enthusiastic, and not more.”

Sparrow nods at him in thanks.

“And now,” Ollivander turns to Hammer. “If you would…” he gestures to her to step forward.

His tape measure flies to her and imminently starts to measure the space in between her eyebrows. Hammer bats it away and it sulks down by her shoes for a moment before shaking itself with a little rattle and measuring her knees instead.

Ollivander presses a wand into her hand. “Oak and unicorn hair, twelve and a half inches.”

Hammer gives it a great sweep and Sparrow takes herself and her newest weapon out of range with haste. Hannah seems to have forgotten she’s not wielding her warhammer.

Nothing happens for a moment.

“No, no, perhaps—"

A flurry of wand-boxes fly off the shelves. The wand is snatched out of Hammer’s hands and a new one takes its place.

“Rowan and unicorn hair, thirteen and an eighth of an inch.”

There’s a blast of stale air and dust rains down on top of their heads. Six wands later and the door has been completely blown off its hinges, the shop now possessed a few less stacks of wand-boxes, and it had briefly rained inside the shop.

Sparrow brushes water off her shoulders and watches bemusedly as the shopkeeper tuts and shoves a new wand at an increasingly frustrated Hannah.

“Fir, fourteen inches, phoenix tail feather, unyielding.”

Hannah gives it a sharp wave and brightens when bright blue and white sparks fly out the end.

“Did you see that, Sparrow? I have magic!” Hannah exclaims, staring awed at her new wand. “Can’t wait to show Garth he’s not the only one who can light things up now, eh.”

Sparrow claps her shoulder and smiles.

That was the last thing on their list, so they gather their packages and went to meet up with Reaver and Garth back at the Leaky Cauldron.

Sparrow dumps her purchases by her bed and flops down onto the covers. Hannah does the same beside her.

“Today really was something,” Hannah says. “It’s a bit hard to believe, but we really are in another world.”

Sparrow shrugs. The Alley had reminded her of Bowerstone Market. Stalls and shops and people scurrying from one to another. Magic had just made things more colorful.  
Hannah rolls over to look at Sparrow. “And the magic—d’you think that this is what the Old Kingdom was like? Magic everywhere and everyone using it instead of a few Heroes and broken artifacts?”

That’s what Garth was researching, Sparrow knew, a way home and how all this relates to the Old Kingdom.

The door to the girl’s room bangs open.

“It’s a travesty!” Reaver barges into the room like he owns it and Garth follows behind him. “I’ve searched fourteen shops—”

“Three of which you were trespassing in,” Garth adds, a stack of tomes as tall as he is floats into the room behind him.

“—and not a one of them sold anything stronger than whiskey!”

Reaver pulls a brown bottle out of a shopping bag. Sparrow catches the word Fire inscribed on the side and sits up on her bed. She extends her hands and makes a grabby motion.

He gasps dramatically at her and clutches the bottle to his chest. “ Share my hard earned liquor?” She motions again. “I suppose I can part with one,” he says, and passes it to her. Then pulls an identical bottle out of the bag.

Ogden’s Firewhiskey, she reads the gold lettering.

“Not to mention what I had to go through to convince the shop keep to sell to someone so young—I rather think she got the impression I was a vampire by the end of it.” Reaver bares his teeth in a smile. “I do believe I got a discount.”

“You went out for school supplies and came back with booze?” Hammer asks Garth.

“No,” the Will user says dryly, “Reaver went out for booze and I came back with school supplies.”

Hammer looks at the stack of books behind him. “School supplies or a library?”

Garth waves a hand and the stack settles itself beside the bed stand. “I know you’re unfamiliar with them, but to mistake this for a library?”

Hannah glares at him. “I grew up in a Temple, I know what a library looks like.”

Garth gives her a skeptical look.


	6. OPEN FLAMES

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confrontation in Umbridge's office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter in the book is called OUT OF THE FIRE, so I’d thought I would be clever and use something similar for my chapter title.
> 
> Uhh, warnings for this chapter include: violence, swearing, threat of torture to minors, threats of torture in general. Umbridge being her canon levels of ‘why is she allowed around children, who thought that was a good idea? Looking at you, Fudge.’
> 
> Still don't own Harry Potter or Fable. No matter how cool that would be.
> 
> Also! Thanks to everyone who’s read and left kudos! I appreciate y’all!

Snape sweeps from the room, and Sparrow doesn’t bother to watch him leave. Whether he’s refusing to aid them or that he can’t, it makes no difference to their situation. 

Sparrow and Hammer are both spelled; Hammer is floating midair behind Warrington and Sparrow is pinned to the floor on her back under what feels like a giant boot heel. Every time she tries to move it only presses down harder and her lungs are starting to burn from the strain. 

Hammer is spasming in impotent rage, face red and murderous, but whatever spell Parkinson has her under leaves her unable to do much more than glare and mouth angry words. Sparrow doesn't know who it’s directed to, Snape, Umbridge, or the Inquisitorial Squad, but Sparrow is dearly hoping that Hammer manages an especially hard swing whenever she gets a chance to express her anger.

Warrington doesn’t seem to notice the aura of impending doom floating behind him, more occupied with sneering at the Weasley he has in a half nelson and sending tense glances in Sparrow’s direction. Sparrow would almost call them concerned if she hasn’t met Cassius Warrington before and known how much of a pragmatic, cold-hearted bastard he was. More than likely, he was just recalling Reaver’s last punishment, which had been handed out for a far lesser transgression than directly aiding the Toad.

Granger is struggling against Bulstrode, but isn’t having any luck at budging the larger girl. Longbottom, Weasley, Other Weasley, and Luna are all gagged and squirming in their trapped positions--well, Longbottom, and both Weasleys are squirming, Luna is tracking invisible things through the window, completely relaxed.

The Inquisitorial Squad--whom Sparrow has decided to rename to a far more apt descriptor of Those Absolute Dickheads--are torn between conveying their total smugness at the situation and looking over their shoulders. Malfoy, Crabbe, Bulstrode, and Parkinson are in the former camp, while Warrington and his two unnamed lackeys are getting more and more anxious as this wears on. 

Sparrow half wishes Reaver would pop up, just to see the Slytherins have heart attacks. (The other half of her wants to pound in their faces herself.)

It’s unpleasant, to say the least, and nothing about the situation is improved by the kitten plates meowing incessantly from the walls. 

“Very well,” the Toad says, the frustration on her face fading into something far more sinister. She pulls out her wand and Sparrow twitches from where she’s sprawled on the office floor at her tone and the drawn weapon, wincing as the giant invisible boot squishes her harder to the floor. “Very well…. I am left with no alternative…. This is more than a matter of school discipline…. This is an issue of Ministry security…. Yes…. yes….” And Sparrow very much does not like the way she’s staring at Potter as she says that.

Potter only glares at Umbridge, and Sparrow has to admire his balls for actively antagonizing the woman who’s got him trapped, surrounded, disarmed, and who has proven to have no qualms about torturing him. Honestly, the kid is starting to remind her of herself in all the worst ways. 

“You are forcing me, Potter…. I do not want to,” says Umbridge, and Sparrow snorts. Umbridge sends the pinned Hero a glare and Sparrow does her best to return it with an irreverent look. Fury contorts the Senior Undersecretary’s face before a nasty smile replaces it. “But sometimes circumstances,” here her wand hand twitches as she looks between Sparrow and Potter, her smile grotesque in its hunger, ”justify the use of…. I am sure the Minister will understand that I had no choice….”

Warrington is looking more and more alarmed as this goes on and exchanges a look with the girl holding the Other Weasley. (Other Weasley senses weakness and immediately kicks at the Slytherin holding her, only to be stymied as the girl lifts her higher from the ground.)

“Professor,” Warrington interjects, and Umbridge snaps her gaze to him. To his credit, Warrington looks as stone faced as ever, showing little apprehension at having the increasingly unhinged High Inquisitor’s full notice. “Some here have the interest of…. influential parties.” Sparrow wonders if he means Reaver or Voldemort. “It would be foolish to--”

Umbridge interrupts him. “The Ministry,” she stresses, “has first jurisdiction in this matter, no matter your influential parties,” she sneers, and turns back to staring at Potter like he was a particularly tasty fly. 

“I’m sure the Cruciatus Curse will loosen your tongue,” Umbridge tells Potter quietly. 

Wasn’t that the torture curse? The one that casting at all gave the user a one way ticket to prison, let alone casting on unarmed schoolchildren?

“No!” Granger shrieks and redoubles her efforts to escape Bulstrode’s hold. The rest of the DA imitate her; Longbottom going absolutely wild, Crabbe wrestling him in place even as the Gryffindor tries to bite desperately at him. 

Warrington and the two Slytherin girls are giving each other looks, seeming to be having a silent argument. Malfoy maintains a gleeful expression, but his eyes are growing more and more panic-stricken the longer Umbridge looks serious. Parkinson is staring at Umbridge in disbelief, which morphs into disgust before it’s quickly hidden away before the Professor sees anything but obedient support.

“Professor Umbridge--it’s illegal! The Minister wouldn’t want you to break the law, Professor Umbridge!” Hermione cries, and Sparrow wryly thinks that that ship has sailed a while ago, but it’s a nice try.

“What Cornelius doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” Umbridge tries to decide the best area to aim on Potter, her wand switching back and forth between his head and his chest. “He never knew I ordered dementors after Potter last summer, but he was delighted to be given the chance to expel him, all the same….”

Sparrow wants her sword. Sparrow wants her sword and her gun and Umbridge strung up across a target. 

Forgetting the spell she was under, Sparrow tries to lunge at Umbridge, only to be shoved back onto the ground harder than ever. It was hard to breathe, every gasp made in a futile attempt at air only got her squeezed harder.

“It was you?” Potter gasps. “You're the one who--”

“Cassius!” The Slytherin holding Luna snaps. Moment interrupted, both Potter and Umbridge turn towards that corner of the room, only to see the girl all but throw Luna behind herself and point her wand at Umbridge, outrage on her face. 

And then, to the entire room’s surprise, Cassius Warrington violently shoves Weasley forwards--the red head hitting the desk in front of them head first with a thunk--and, without looking behind him, flicks his wand. Hammer falls to the floor, free, and immediately springs to her feet and lunges at Crabbe, pulling him off of a grateful Longbottom, who starts gasping for air after being held in a choke hold for so long. 

The girl holding Other Weasley drops her. Weasley scrambles up and to her downed brother, shooting Warrington and Umbridge equally as scathing glares. 

“What are you doing?” Umbridge shrieks, “Stop them! Stop them!” at the remaining members of the Inquisitorial Squad.

They hesitantly raise their wands, but Malfoy and Parkinson both look to Warrington, who narrows his eyes at them before raising an expectant brow. The two exchange a glance, Malfoy’s face twists unpleasantly and Parkinson glares at him, but they both lower their wands.

“What?” Umbridge gasps out, seemingly uncomprehending of this betrayal. 

Malfoy shakes his head. “Using Unforgivables on students, Professor?” He looks to Warrington one last time, who only inclines his head. Malfoy gives a put upon sigh, tosses Potter’s wand into its owner’s stunned hands, and gives her a sneer. “How impolitic of you.”

Parkinson doesn’t say anything, but she does move to grab Crabbe by the arm to tug him away from Hammer’s grasp. Hammer lets her, but only after giving her a truly terrifying glare and pointing in Sparrow’s direction.

Sparrow is very grateful for this as Parkinson pulls a face, but lifts whatever spell had Sparrow pinned to the floor like a butterfly is pinned to a wall. Sparrow doesn’t bother to get up, Umbridge is outnumbered and, judging from Warrington’s show in the last Underground Inter-House Dueling Tournament, also outmatched. She just lays there and takes great joy in inhaling enough air that the black spots in her vision fade away.

Bulstrode huffs, but she does release Granger, who warily eyes all the Slytherins in the room before turning her attention and ire towards Umbridge. 

Umbridge whirls around, either uncaring or too desperate to worry about putting her back to a now armed and angry Potter. “Mr. Malfoy! Your father will--”

Malfoy grimances, but stands firm. Potter gapes at him, jaw slack. 

The girl who had been holding Luna jabs her wand in Umbridge’s direction. A gag appears in the Defense teacher’s mouth. “Tyra Taylor, daughter of Talis Taylor. My mother is also on the Board, and while my sister has been hesitant to write home to mother on the subject of her detentions, do not mistake me for the same. I’m sure mother will be greatly interested in the use of a highly-restricted Dark Artifact for detentions.”

Granger gasps quietly. “There’s a First-Year Miranda Taylor in Gryffindor, but I didn’t know…” Taylor spares her a glance before going back to glaring at Umbridge. Granger continues, to herself and under her breath, “I suppose Umbridge didn’t make the connection either….”

Weasley groans from his position on the floor, and Granger is quickly distracted from her rambling. One quick spell later and Weasley is on his feet, scowling at the Slytherins, but making no move beyond stepping pointedly in front of his exasperated sister.

Warrington steps forwards, and with a quick look to the younger Slytherins in the room, all of the DA members have their wands back. Umbridge visibly pales.

“Taylor,” he says. Taylor gives him her attention, but her wand doesn't waver from in between Umbridge’s bulging eyes. “Go and find Nott. Tell him what’s happened and….” he hesitates, barely a second, but it’s there, “gather the others. It’s time to collect all of our evidence.”

Taylor smiles, sharp and eager. Umbridge flinches. With one last look at Umbridge, Taylor gets ready to depart. She’s at the door when Potter stops her.

“Wait,” he says, and dives for Umbridge’s desk. A second later and he’s shoving a dark, spiky quill at her. “Evidence, yeah?” he asks. 

Other Weasley is less than convinced. She asks from behind her brother, “You really think the Ministry will do something about her? They’re the ones who placed her here in the first place.”

“The Ministry?” Taylor laughs. “If the Wizengamot refuses us, then we’ll take this to the ICW. They won’t care what Fudge says.” With that, she leaves.

“Temple,” Warrington addresses Hammer. 

“Yeah?” she answers. 

“You have connections in Hufflepuff. Can you get anyone who’s had a detention with Professor Umbridge to the dungeons. I know you know where the Common Room is.”

Hammer stares at him for a moment, judging. After a beat she shrugs, rolls her shoulders, and nods. “Sure.” She looks at Sparrow. “You good?”

Sparrow looks up at her from where she’s still sprawled on the floor. Gives a pointed look at Umbridge. Grins. And then hauls herself to her feet. Everything aches in a way that means she’s going to be a full body bruise for a while, but she’s had worse.

“I’ll find Garth, too,” Hammer decides. “He knows healing spells, I’m sure you're going to need them.”

Granger looks up sharply at that. “No one here is badly injured. Why would….?”

Hammer levels a look at Umbridge. “Yet. No one here is badly injured, yet.” Umbridge squeaks. And then faints, hitting the floor with a thud, as no one bothers to catch her.

And with that, she leaves.

You’ve got to love how Hammer makes an exit, Sparrow thinks. Half the room is in awe, the other half subtly terrified. And they haven't even seen her go toe to root with a troll yet. 

Warrington sighs, looks at Sparrow. “How are all of you so….” 

Sparrow smirks at him.

He shakes his head. “Right. Volpe?” 

The Slytherin who had been holding Other Weasley pops up beside him. Half the room jumps, Sparrow not among them. Volpe had disappeared into Umbridge’s side room early on in the confrontation. When she came out, it was with a bundle of official looking parchments and a smile that wouldn’t look out of place on a fox with feathers scattered around it. 

“Interesting,” Warrington says, looking at the documents. “Well. Potter,” he says, and Potter jumps at being addressed. “We have work to do. Good luck with whatever prompted you to break into Umbridge’s office.” 

With that, the remaining Slytherins leave, Umbridge floating unconscious behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is set pretty late in the book, so there are some Hero-spawned plot differences that have some pretty blatant effects. I'll do my best to explain those in later chapters, but if anyone has any questions then I'll try to answer them.
> 
> Kudos and comments give me life, so don't hesitate to leave any!


	7. LIBRARY CARDS

[“....there’s no mention of wandless control over the elements anywhere, even the Romans acknowledged that the Transalpine Gauls were using staves to control the weather, no ritual was found that--”

“Only if you don’t take into account that the traditional tattoos were dedicated to the elements--”

“Superstition only! No one has any proof that--!”

“And the first hand accounts of the priests of the time don’t count?”]

Hammer tilts her head. “Is it weird that I think Garth is actually…. Enjoying himself?”

Sparrow takes in the scene in front of her. Nods her head.

Garth and Granger are both at a different table, huddled over an ancient tomb, stacks of similarly large and crumbling books surrounding them. Garth is calmly explaining something to a more and more frustrated Granger, who at this point, Sparrow would not put past murder. Granger bristles and jabs a finger down at the text, while Garth hums and looks smugly superior at her.

“Exactly. It’s unnatural. I haven’t seen him so amused since Reaver accidentally drank that potion that turned his hair-- _oof_!”

Sparrow jabs her in the ribs, just in time for Reaver to slide into the chair across from them.

Hammer rubs her side, even as she sends Sparrow a half grateful, half annoyed look. No one wants to put up with Reaver’s tantrum should anyone remind him of the Time-That-Shall-Not-Be-Referenced-Ever.

“Do I want to know why our monocle-wearing friend is arguing with a beaver?” Reaver asks.

Sparrow snorts, even as Hammer narrows her eyes at him.

“Garth and Granger have been arguing over some magic thing for over an hour,” the redhead informs him. “And she does not look like a beaver. That’s rude.”

“ _Rude_? Oh woe is me, I certainly didn’t mean to insult the local wildlife. I shall have to apologize at once! Perhaps with a gift of some nice timber?”

[How would one even channel it outside of ley lines, there’s no possibility of--”

“Not if you use ley lines. But the ambient magic in the air is more than sufficient for--”

“Not! Possible! Not without a ritual!”]

“Reaver,” Hammer growls.

Reaver ignores her. “Perhaps I can set up a good dam, I hear they like that kind of thing.”

Both of them dissolve into squabbling, Hammer growing redder in the face and Reaver’s smirk taking on a dangerous quality the longer it goes on. Sparrow gives it even odds that someone draws a weapon in the next ten minutes.

In the meantime….

Sparrow pulls out her Transfiguration textbook tires to complete the homework McGonagall assigned last class. Why anyone would need opera glasses so desperately that they’d turn an owl into them, Sparrow had no clue.

She squints at the chart shown and wrinkles her nose.

[“According to Caledondia’s Laws of Elemental Magic, there is no. Such. Thing.”

“And yet”--lightning sparks and Granger makes a rage filled noise--”just because one source calls it impossible--”

“Gah! How--! Wait, are you talking about the Zeno method of channeling magic in a loop instead of the--”

“Zeno? An interesting thought, but no I’m instead using the already present--”

“Oh! I see!”]

Why use an owl? What did any owl ever do to deserve being turned into what basically amounts to fancy binoculars for rich people? From mail carrier to glasses. Sparrow doesn’t think that any bird deserves that, let alone the species that already has to put up with the Wizarding World’s nonsense.

….maybe for the vision aspect? Owls were known for their sight, but then did that mean that there was also a version for hawks or eagles? Could you use the spell meant for owls on a different bird? Did using an owl mean it had better night vision? Now she’s curious.

Sparrow scans her textbook, flipping through the pages looking for any information on the topic. She finds a paragraph that mentions different versions of the spell and is about to read it when--

Hammer stands and the table jostles. “I’m sick of you! Why can’t you just--”

“Oh _no_ , did I make you angry? That wasn’t my intention when I called you an eye-searing gorilla, you know.” Reaver leans back in his chair, as languid as ever, except his wand was in his hand and he’s twirling it menacingly.

Hammer cracks her fists. “A gorilla, huh? Well then. At least I’m not some mangy ship's cat with too many lives.”

Hammer looms over him, and would probably be much scarier if she wasn’t in a library and still in her school uniform. Reaver yawns at her.

Sparrow spares a glance at her book, which is now on the floor, and sighs heavily. The one time she actually wants to do homework….

Standing, she pops her back and is about to try to do something about them when she spots someone scurrying their way.

A split second later and Sparrow is seated beside Granger, who takes a breath from arguing with Garth to greet her and then goes right back to debating some complicated magical thing with the Will user. Sparrow tunes the two of them out immediately upon hearing them include numbers and what sounds like mathematical formulas.

Over at the other table, Hammer and Reaver are nose to nose, or, what with Hammer being a head taller than most people, nose to chest.

Sparrow has to restrain her laughter when, instead of paying attention to the figure standing behind them tapping her toes, they both start insulting each other louder.

Madam Pince’s face is a sight to behold.

“What are you two doing?!” she demands, and Hammer jumps almost a foot in the air. “The Library is no place for a brawl! Out, _out_!”

Reaver goes for his most charming smile. “Just what I was telling her, Madam. I’m afraid that I had no luck--” A book slams into his face. “Oh, that’s just--” another book hovers threateningly at him and he holds up his hands.

Hammer snorts a laugh until a similar incident happens to her, a tome of no small size whacks itself across the back of her head. “I’m going, I’m going!” she says, and half runs out of the Library, Reaver right behind her.

Sparrow sniggers silently, but stops when Madam Pince swings her gaze in her direction. Sparrow goes for her most innocent look and can practically feel the halo on her head. Apparently, it works, because Pince only narrows her eyes in suspicion and moseys on back to disappear into the stacks.

She retrieves her books, and manages to finish all of her homework by the time that Garth emerges from his debate. Granger bids him farewell in a much more polite way than Sparrow was expecting from the way she had been enthusiastically arguing.

Garth gathers his books and stretches. “Where did Hannah go?” he asks, before dismissing the matter entirely. “Never mind, I need you to help prove a theory. Meet me on the grounds by the lake tomorrow.”

And then he leaves before Sparrow can reply.


End file.
